Outline of the March 19th Lecture / D. Terzioğlu

Absolutism Challenged: The English Revolution


1. England under the early Stuarts: an overview

(Important terms: gentry; House of Lord, House of Commons; common law; Anglicans, Puritans)

2. Causes of the constitutional crisis and the civil war

1. Fiscal
2. Religious
3. Constitutional

3. From constitutional crisis to the “puritan republic”

Petition of Right (1628)
Short Parliament (1640)
Long Parliament (1640-2)
Civil War (1642-6)
“The Puritan Republic” (1649-1660)
Cromwellian Protectorate (1653-1660)

4. Restoration and the Glorious Revolution

(Important terms: Whigs and Tories; Test Act)

Monarchy triumphant: the reign of Charles II (1649/1660-1685)
Crisis anew: the reign of James II (1685-8)
The Glorious Revolution (1688-9)

5. A comparison between England and France

Royal agendas and ideologies
Social base of the opposition to absolutism
Ideological base of the opposition to absolutism: John Locke and the Two Treatises on Government